In Yamoussoukro, the big words come easily. Equality, rights, future. But what gives the 2026 Adolescent Girls Summit its real strength is not the language of speeches. It is what happens when young people speak up and bring these issues back to where they begin: real life.
🌍 The 2026 Adolescent Girls Summit (AGS) is a regional platform led by and for adolescents, bringing together girls, boys and young people in Yamoussoukro from across West Africa and beyond to advance gender justice and the rights of adolescents. Under the theme Count Us In: African Adolescents Co-Creating Solutions to Advance Gender Justice and Rights, the summit will spotlight young people’s voices, leadership and solutions.
“In African traditions, a tree grows straight only when its roots are firmly anchored in the ground.” – Elhadj Harouna KONE (Alliance of West African Religious Leaders for Health and Development – ARAO/SD).
School‑Related Gender‑Based Violence (SRGBV) is affecting the learning, safety and well‑being of millions of learners worldwide, holding back entire education systems and limiting progress toward inclusive, gender‑equal education. The cost of inaction is enormous, but so is the opportunity: safer, more inclusive schools benefit everyone.
Join UNGEI, UNESCO and UNICEF for a webinar spotlighting practical solutions to turn commitment to SRGBV into long-lasting change.
Every 8 March, International Women’s Day reminds us of an essential reality: if this day is still necessary, it is because women’s rights remain fragile. They only become real when they are defended, explained, and made tangible in the spaces where life truly unfolds.
As the 2030 deadline for the Sustainable Development Goals approaches, African feminist movements, youth-led organisations, and other civil society actors are increasingly coming together in a more constrained environment: shrinking civic space, a rise in anti-rights rhetoric, and major pressure on funding for sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR).
60+ religious and traditional leaders from west and Central Africa joined a webinar on the WCA Commitment
MenEngage Africa SRHR Learning and Exchange Symposium, taking place in Mombasa, Kenya, from 10 to 14 August 2026, will convene a diverse gathering of SRHR advocates, youth leaders, policy‑makers, civil society, researchers, and regional partners to collectively advance reproductive justice in the face of growing resistance across Africa.
Learn more about how the WCA Commitment is driving action to improve the health, education, and well-being of adolescents and young people in West and Central Africa.
In Dolisie, in the Republic of Congo, some memories never fade. Yann Mboungou-Tsoumbou has carried one since childhood: the image of a classmate humiliated because of her period. She had been isolated, mocked, reduced to a shame that even the adults did not know how to name. He was barely twelve, unable to react, unable even to understand why the scene hurt him so deeply. He still remembers her eyes, shattered. And his own, turning away — the eyes of a child without the words or the power to intervene.